Names
by Sonic Serendipity
Summary: "He has held these children in his arms for five minutes, Padme's body is still warm on the medical table, and he rejects the Jedi's delusions and any denial of his attachment." Obi-Wan raising the twins
1. Chapter 1

_AN:if no one else gon write stuff bout ObiWan with bb twins I'll have a go at it, dammit, heh._

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We were so deluded, he thinks. So proud in that delusion.

Jedi, unattached? He might have thought himself devoid of attachments five years, two, even a month ago; but everything has been torn away and the place they were rooted still bleeds now. No attachments? He has held these children in his arms for five minutes, Padme's body is still warm on the medical table, and he rejects the Jedi's delusions and any denial of his attachment.

"Split up, they should be. Safer, it is."

Split up? All they have had is each other for nine months: the two creatures in his arms feel more like one to a gentle brush in the force. Might as well say a person's attachment to their own limbs is wrong and they should be divided from them.

"I will take them to Tatooine," he says. "An...he would avoid that place. Most people do. It will be isolated, safe from informants and databases." He can see the path ahead of him even as he speaks. He has never felt so woven in both the present and future. "I can reach out to Shmi's stepchildren, Padme has spoken well of them. While the children are very young I can shield them myself, and later they can be taught to protect their own minds. If Palpatine's Empire should stretch as far as the Outer Rim in the future we can move on."

There are objections at first, and none of them move him even an inch. He is calm, courteous, implacable. He has been master and councilmember and general and won many battles he believed in less than this. Concentrate on the here and now, his own Master's voice whispers, and he anchors himself to the children, to Anakin's children, and will not be moved.


	2. Chapter 2

"They're very quiet," Beru said softly. Whether by experience or instinct she cradled Leia perfectly, held so firmly the baby couldn't hardly move. In comparison with Owen's wary reticence she had looked on the little ones with nothing less than joy. Obi-Wan contrasted it with Yoda's disappointment, the Jedi view that would hold the fathering of children as a failure, and thought this sun-burnt young woman was more right.

"Are you..." Owen trailed off, but looked stubborn.

"What, playing around in their heads?" Obi-Wan interpreted, and Owen firmed his jaw and nodded. "No. No I'm not." Luke was peering blearily towards his guardian, and Obi-Wan bent down close enough for the blue eyes to focus on his face. His cheeks still felt naked without the beard he had worn for years, but the fumbling impact of the soft little hand on his cheek made him smile. "The Force is with me, and it gives me several advantages most caregivers would lack-I can soothe them with my mind, send comfort, and I can sense their needs with more precision than I would otherwise."

Beru made a pleased sound. "It doesn't seem fair, really! If word got out you'd have parents the galaxy over clamoring at that temple of yours to be trained." The mention of the Temple sobered them, and Obi-Wan had to work to keep his emotions shielded so as not to distress the twins.

"How much danger are you bringing here, really?"

"Owen," Beru chided, but he shook his head, not unkindly but with no backing down.

"I'm not saying I'll turn you out- they're Shmi's grandchildren, that means something. But if they really are going around exterminating you Jedi, how do you know you'll be safe here?"

"Tatooine is controlled by the Hutts," Obi-Wan said. "Palpatine will have enough trouble bringing what once was the Republic to heel without stretching out to the Rim here. And I'm not entirely without resources- I was brought here using no official transport or funds, and the equipping of our new home was handled by an intermediary with...shall we say, experience avoiding the law."

"And he...and Vader won't know about these sources?"

Obi-Wan smiled, a little wry and a little sad. "I only introduced Anakin to a few of the contacts I knew through my Master. I was afraid they would be...bad influences."

Beru gave a strangled little yip of a laugh that she tried to muffle in her shoulder...and then they were all laughing, strained and a little hysterical but real, as the babies started and boggled at the strange sounds the giants around them made. They've never heard anyone laugh before, Obi-Wan thought, and choked down his mirth before it could change to something else.

"What name you gonna go by?" Owen asked once they'd recovered. Obi-Wan blinked at him, and the young farmer rolled his eyes. "Even out here we've heard of Kenobi and Skywalker."

"Ah." Luke was starting to get restless, and he shifted the child to a position against his shoulder. "...Jinn," he said finally. "Ben Jinn."

"Not Tatooinan, but it'll do," Owen said.


	3. Chapter 3

They visited the Lars' in honor of the twins' fifth birthday, and Luke was ecstatic. "THREE trips this month!" he said more than once. "Three!"

"You only love me for my landspeeder," Owen said gruffly, and they clamored over each other to assure him that was not so.

"...but it IS a cool speeder..." Leia added hopefully, and Owen rolled his eyes and hefted a child over each shoulder. "I'm abducting your charges, old man," he said and they shrieked in delight.

"Nooo! Uncle Ben, save us!"

"Oh no. Help. I'm trapped. I can't escape. Beru, how could you do this to me?"

"Feed you, you mean?" She looked him over fondly. "Someone has to." His face and body stayed as relaxed and contained as usual, but she thought he was a little embarrassed to be fussed over. She sat across from him. "You know, they're old enough for the school in Anchorhead now."

His head came up and he frowned. "Anchorhead? There's a school there?"

"Mm. For the homesteaders' and traders' little ones. It's open three days a week, although people who live as far out as we do only go once a week."

"That's..." He seemed actually nonplussed now, which was a first. "I hadn't even considered school. I had thought I would teach them at home. At least, that's what I had been doing."

"Oh, you've been doing very well!" Beru assured him, laying her own callused hand over his. "They are marvelous children, very well-spoken. You are wonderful with them and they love you completely. Only...it can only be good for them to spend time with some other people too, don't you think?"

He gave her a wry look. "Lest I corrupt them with my strange Jedi ways?"

"They DO have Core-world accents," she pointed out impishly, and smiled as his tension broke on a chuckle. "And their Huttese is terrible."

"Well, if their _Huttese_ is terrible..."

And so, once a week Luke and Leia Jinn went to school in Anchorhead.

It was fine-mostly. From the moment of their birth to now, they'd only been out of his presence for a handful of days, staying with Beru when Obi-Wan had some duty that you simply couldn't bring a little one along for. The responsibility was terrifying stifling at first, even terrifying, but very shortly they became his greatest joy and comfort-Jedi, after all, are not made to be alone. Still, having them safely (if there could be such a thing) tucked away in the little building with a few long-suffering teachers and a handful of other children allowed him more time for things like supply runs, and nursing cups of alcohol in cantinas to listen for news of the Empire.

He worried, naturally. Some of the fears were even borne out; on the second school day they both came back with bloody lips and noses from a brawl the teachers described with great admiration ("They held their own really well, I have to say-and then afterward somehow talked the other guys into being their friends! You have a couple little negotiators on your hands, Ben."), and their vocabulary acquired a few choice additions. All things considered, however, the benefits outweighed the downsides.

...until, two months into school season, they both came back very quiet and thoughtful. Not sure if he should be afraid, he asked, "What has the two of you thinking so deeply tonight?"

The twins looked at each other, half-felt thoughts flickering over the bond between them. "...Uncle Ben," Luke finally said, "How come we don't call you Father?"

It was a lifetime's training in releasing his emotions to the Force that kept his voice light as he crouched down to their level. "Because I am not your Father, little one. I have told you-your father was my brother, your mother was my friend, and with them gone I am your guardian."

For his pains he got a simultaneous eye roll. "We know that," they chorused, and Leia continued: "But we live with you."

"Yes, you do," he said, smiling. "Does someone become your Father because you live with them?"

"No, but..." Luke trailed off in frustration and his sister jumped in.

"Who gives us food and water?"

She waited for a response, staring him down with her little arms crossed. "I do," Obi-Wan said, amused and rather flattered to see her turning some of his own rhetorical tools against him.

"Who gives us hugs and kisses?"

"Ben does!" Luke broke in, beaming, and flung himself into his guardian's arms, apparently in demonstration.

"Who teaches us things and tells us stories?"

"Ben does!"

Leia looked smugly pleased with herself, and Obi-Wan was struck all over again by her resemblance to his lost apprentice. "So," she concluded, " _Aren't_ you our father-from assertive point of view?"

He gave up the battle and laughed aloud, pulling her in with the arm that wasn't around Luke. "From a _certain_ point of view, yes. I suppose you're right."


	4. Chapter 4

When Luke and Leia- and the Empire- are ten years old, an Imperial garrison is posted on Tatooine. It is small and of little effect but nonetheless Obi-Wan immediately (quietly) begins gathering resources so that not a year later he and the twins depart for a new life as owners and crew of a small freighter. The children weep bitterly to be parted from their friends, from the Larses, from the gentle eopies that have been with them their entire short lives. Well, Luke merely weeps: Leia, it must be said, rages. But both emotions are understandable and pass soon enough.

A small independent trader can make its way in the Rim easily enough, though less lucratively than someone who sought out illegal cargo; in this as in everything the Force is with them. Luke fashions scraps into extenders so his small hands and feet can reach every control in the cockpit; he flies with as much skill and far more glee than Ben. Leia insists on accompanying him on every negotiation, and proves eerily talented at ferreting out the weak points of any opposition.

By the time the twins are twelve they are well-settled into their new life. Obi-Wan's hair goes from bleached sun-red back to auburn, while Leia shoots up three inches and Luke two. On the second day of a three-day hyperspace transit, the twins wake and stumble into the galley to find their guardian seated cross-legged on the ground with three small packages lined up in front of him. His solemn mood infects them immediately and they kneel across from him, scrubbing the last sleep out of their eyes.

"Father?" Luke says softly, and Obi-Wan opens his eyes. His expression is stern but his eyes smile as he unwraps the first bundle.

The children gasp as a shining blue crystal is revealed, and Leia reaches for it before snatching her hand back with effort. He opens all three packages and leaves the gems lined up on the floor, blue, green, blue. They sing softly in the Force and Luke and Leia stare. "In the days of the Order," he says wistfully, "You would know so much by now. You would _have_ so much by now. You would be chosen by a Master whom the Force finds suitable to you in skill and temperament, who would teach you with the support of ten thousand other Jedi behind them." He reaches out as if to touch the green crystal but lets his hand fall on his knee. "This is all I have to give you."

Luke, sweet stubborn Luke, reaches over the crystals as if they aren't there and holds Obi-Wan's work-worn hand in his own. "We live free, and we have each other. What more does a child of the desert need?" Leia folds her arms and nods once, firmly.

Anakin's and Padme's eyes, in small open faces. But now more than anything he sees Luke's eyes, Leia's eyes, and he finds it in himself to smile again. "Well, if you don't need anything more than should we _not_ make lightsabers, then?"

Luke snatches his hand back as if burnt and the twins stare wide-eyed at the crystals. "...really?!"

"Yes, really," he teases, and sits back on his heels to gesture at the gems between them. His, Qui-Gon's, Anakin's. "We will build them together."

"Yes, Father, please!" Leia crows, and Luke nods so vigorously his over-long hair whips like a dragon's tail.

"You know," Obi-Wan says gently, "In the context of being my apprentices...you should probably call me 'Master'."

"Why?" they say together, and he gives the question due consideration. 'Because it's tradition' is not something he falls back on, these days.

"It's a sign of respect, from student to teacher. A sign of humility, of willingness to be taught. I called Qui-Gon Master when I was his Padawan, but even after becoming a master in my own right I still called the others of the same rank 'Master'."

Leia hums thoughtfully, but Luke looks unhappy. "I..." he trailed off.

"Yes?" Obi-Wan prods. "Becoming my apprentice doesn't suddenly make you stop being my child. I've not known reticence to be one of your faults, young Luke."

The boy folds his hands together in unconscious imitation and makes himself meet his father's eyes. "I just, I don't like it. It's what the slaves have to say."

Obi-Wan nods. "I see. Do you think that I will begin treating you like a slave if I make you call me 'Master'?"

"Of course not!" Luke cries indignantly, as passionate in his defense as though he's been insulted by some outsider.

"Then do you think saying it will make you feel like a slave?"

Luke opens his mouth...then closes it with a shrug. "Maybe?"

"Hmm. I hear and understand you." Obi-Wan folds down a little to meet the young one's downturned eyes. "I will make you a bargain. If after some time calling me 'Master' you find it makes you feel like property rather than protege, you may stick to calling me 'Uncle' or 'Father'. Does that seem fair?"

The clouds flee from Luke's face swiftly, and Obi-Wan thanks the Force that his melancholy moods rarely lingered. "Yes, Fa-" he stops and makes a face. "Yes, Master."

"We can't call you that around strangers, anyway," Leia says importantly. "It would be conspicuous."

"Indeed it would, my young apprentice," he says seriously, and gestures to the nearly-forgotten gems. "Now, children. Choose one that calls to you, and we will begin."

Luke chooses Qui-Gon's crystal after a bare moment of consideration. Leia's hand shoots straight to the one that used to sit at the heart of Obi-Wan's blade. With mixed joy and sorrow, Obi-Wan takes up the crystal once carried by his first apprentice, and bows to the twins. "Well then. Shall we begin?"

"Yes, Master!" they chorus.


	5. Chapter 5

The twins were sixteen when they found themselves back on Tatooine- adults, by the standards of the Rim, where ability and experience count more than marks on a chrono. Their ship was old when they got it years ago, and in desperate need of an overhaul for the past few months. They had connections on Tatooine, family even, so it was at Tosche Station that they rented a bay for their ship to take it apart. Leia and Ben will never have Luke's gift for machinery, the affinity and ability to feel the machines that also helps make him such a fearsome pilot, but they do well enough. Progress was steady, and with alarms rigged everywhere and Leia's senses streched out around the bay like a blanket they even took the risk of using the Force for particularly heavy lifts.

In the middle of detaching one of the ion cannons Luke's attention was drawn away, enough that Obi-Wan grunted as he took up the slack to lower the heavy thing to the floor with just his own mind. "Luke?"

"I'm sorry, Master," Luke said, sounding puzzled. "I sense...not danger, really, but something else. A change, maybe. A loss?"

"What do you mean?" Leia asked, frowning to match him as she tried to let her presence stretch out still further. Her powers were no lesser than her brother's, but of a different sort; more subtle, more anchored, where his were as wide-ranging and open as his generous spirit.

"I don't _know_ ," he said in frustration, and Obi-Wan stretched out in the Force to tap at the boy's shields warningly.

"Anxiety will do you no good, Luke. We have received your warning and will heed it; but until and unless it manifests, it will behoove us to keep our attention on the here-and-now."

What manifested, not a day later, was a sandcrawler bearing droids and spare parts; and what two of those droids bore made the Jedi master withdraw his feelings so far under his shields that his children felt a prickle of actual fear along their backs.

"Do you know her?" Luke murmured, staring at the face of the young woman shown in the frozen holo. Leia was sending gentle mockery over their link for his staring, but he refused to be embarrassed; the girl was brave, and in need of their help-and if he found her beautiful also, well, even their guardian liked to look at beautiful things.

"Not personally," Ben said absently. "Her father Bail was a friend."

"General," Leia said, testing out the word. "I never think of you as a general."

"I haven't been one for many years," he demurred, but there was a sudden tinge of mischief to his sense that had both youngsters eyeing him suspiciously.

"But?" Luke prompted.

"You may have repressed the memory," he said teasingly. "There was a time...I think you were six? You both decided my continued refusal to replace our eopies with a landspeeder was cruellest tyranny, and took to calling me 'General' in tones of purest scorn."

"Really?" Leia marveled.

"Oh yes. It went on for about three days." He leveled them with a look. "On the second day, I started to make you run five suicides every time you said the word."

"Ooh," said Luke in sympathy for their younger selves, but Leia looked pleased.

"And we lasted two days of that?"

"Not," he said drily, "the point."

"More to the point," Luke said, "What are we going to do? We have to help her, but it would be at least a week to get the ship put back together."

" _Do_ we have to?" Leia gave her brother an apologetic look and continued, "I mean, couldn't you send the droid on as cargo?"

"I fear we have found Luke's disturbance," Ben replied gently, and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Do you not feel it? I do have to go, personally." He looked them both over. "Of course, you realize that just because _I_ have to go doesn't mean you must as well, children."

The blast of response that hit in the Force was so potent he actually blinked and swayed a little. "Don't be _stupid_ , Master," Leia hissed fiercely, and Luke folded his arms and glared with an implacability that was a little Padme and a little Obi-Wan and a little Leia and a lot Luke.

"Your orders, General," he said, and Obi-Wan wondered if it was his destiny to always be humbled by the regard of those he loved.

"Very well," he said, then smiled. "But don't call me General."


	6. Chapter 6

Han and Princess Mara are very alike, Luke thought. They'd bickered constantly since they met, although without the special edge of Leia and Han's spats; but when the Falcon was safe in hyperspace and the twins started to break down, they both showed kindness by quietly exiling themselves to the cockpit and leaving them in peace.

Of course it's Leia, wonderful practical Leia, who was the first one to speak.

"What do we tell them our names are?"

Luke uncurled from her side enough to blink at her, eyes still sore and red. "What?"

"The time for disguise has expired, I'd think. Should we introduce ourselves to the Rebels as Leia and Luke Jinn? They knew...they knew his real name. The Princess called him General Kenobi."

Luke let himself consider the question, hesitantly, cautiously touching the Force for whatever insight it might give him. "...I don't think we should use 'Jinn'."

"Why not?" His sister asked. "Un...that is, he loved Master Qui-Gon. It's not a bad name to have."

"I think..." Luke said slowly, "...I think it should be a memory rather than a disguise." Now that it was spoken, he felt the truth of the words settle on him, like the name he'd used for sixteen years was now as ill-fitting as the clothes he'd worn as a child. He didn't understand why, exactly, and he could tell that Leia understood less; but as he trusted her lead in the practical things, she accepted his conviction until it became her own. He shifted the blanket over his shoulders. "Naberrie?"

"She left us," Leia said quietly, fiercely.

"She didn't choose-"

"She loved our father more than she loved us. If he wasn't there we weren't enough reason to stay."

It wasn't as simple as all that, of course, and she knew it as well as he did: but words were, as ever, just air. He felt the way that name would sit on his sister, and though Luke Naberrie sounded fine to him he wouldn't go where she couldn't follow. "...Skywalker?" He offered, carefully.

(In the moment when the lightsaber stroke fell and Obi-Wan's life winked out, their minds cried out FATHER! as one, but Luke was the only one of them who sent the word towards more than the one man. Leia could have hated him for it, but she knew her twin better than she knew himself, and she knew trying to restrict the expression of his big heart to her exclusive loyalty would be both hopeless and cruel.)

"It was Grandmother's name," Leia said. "And it is...it's the name of someone Obi-Wan Kenobi loved."

"Yes," Luke agreed, and his generous mouth crumpled again. "But he...he..." 

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On Yavin base, Princess Mara introduces them as Luke and Leia Kenobi. "Your father was a great man," Mon Mothma tells them, and they nod together.


End file.
